The National Republican Congressional Committee wants to make sure there are no Todd Akin-style gaffes next year, so it’s meeting with top aides of sitting Republicans to teach them what to say — or not to say — on the trail, especially when their boss is running against a woman.

Speaker John Boehner is serious, too. His own top aides met recently with Republican staff to discuss how lawmakers should talk to female constituents.

“Let me put it this way, some of these guys have a lot to learn,” said a Republican staffer who attended the session in Boehner’s office.

There have been “multiple sessions” with the NRCC where aides to incumbents were schooled in “messaging against women opponents,” one GOP aide said.

While GOP party leaders have talked repeatedly of trying to “rebrand” the party after the 2012 election losses, the latest effort shows they’re not entirely confident the job is done.

So they’re getting out in front of the next campaign season, heading off gaffes before they’re ever uttered and risk repeating the 2012 season, when a handful of comments let Democrats paint the entire Republican Party as anti-woman.

Boehner urged his colleagues Thursday in response to this POLITICO story to “be a little more sensitive” when running against women.

“Some of our members just aren’t as sensitive as they ought to be,” Boehner said.

Boehner (R-Ohio) said bluntly that “when you look around the Congress, there are a lot more females in the Democrat caucus than there are in the Republican caucus.”has to

Republicans are trying to avoid a 2012 repeat. Akin dropped the phrase “legitimate rape” during the 2012 Missouri Senate race, costing himself a good shot at winning his own race and touching off Democratic charges of a GOP “War on Women” that dogged Republicans in campaigns across the country.

In the 2014 cycle, there will be at least 10 races where House GOP male incumbents face Democratic women challengers. More races could crop up as the cycle unfolds.

Some of the highest profile fights will take place in states like New York, Illinois, Florida and Virginia — the last where GOP gubernatorial candidate Ken Cuccinelli was defeated recently due in part to being perceived as anti-woman.

Individual Republicans have continued to give Democrats plenty of ammunition about being insensitive to women’s issues. From Rep. Trent Franks (R-Ariz.) talking about rape and pregnancy at a Judiciary Committee hearing earlier this year, to House Republicans passing a 20-week abortion ban in June, to Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.) blaming military sexual assault on “hormones,” there have been repeated instances where GOP lawmakers have come off as tone-deaf to female voters.

The GOP’s problems with female voters aren’t confined to verbal gaffes and stupid comments by candidates and campaign advisers. As both the 2012 campaign and the recently concluded Governor’s race in Virginia revealed starkly, the biggest problem that the party has with female voters has to do with its positions on issues, including not just social issues like abortion and access to contraceptives but also economic issues and domestic policy issues like education. While both pre-election and exit polling seem to indicate that the party’s problems are more severe among young, single women than among married women with children, one has to imagine that even that bit of reassuring news for the GOP will start to disappear as those single women get married and have children of their own. More likely than not, the GOP will start to experience the same large gender gap with this younger cohort of married women that they are now experiencing with them when they’re single. The important point, though, is that the GOP’s problems with women aren’t just about a few candidates making stupid comments about rape and abortion, although it certainly doesn’t help. As with their problems with young voters, Latinos, and others, it’s also about the positions the party has taken on issues important to those voters. Until that changes in some way, then it’s only going to be candidates like Chris Christie who will be able to break through and attract female voters.

There is another way that the GOP could make itself more attractive to female voters, of course, and that would be to find a way to stop being seen a party almost exclusively made up of white male candidates:

There are currently 78 female lawmakers in the House; 59 of them are Democrats. The partisan gender gap is similar in the Senate, where of the record 20 female senators currently serving in the 113th Congress, 16 are Democrats versus only four Republicans.

Yet Republicans insist they aren’t ceding the ground to Democrats when it comes to trying to attract female candidates.

“We’re doing the same thing against them,” said National Republican Congressional Committee Chairman Greg Walden of Oregon. “We may have more women challengers now than we did in the last cycle. … We’ve got some great women candidates and it’s been a focus of ours too.” Walden specifically named Mia Love in Utah and Martha McSally in Arizona, both of whom could end up running against male Democratic incumbents.

Like other Republicans, Walden said party leaders have addressed messaging against female challengers with their own incumbents.

“You need to be very careful in how you approach any group and what you say,” Walden said when asked about House GOP leadership efforts to find female candidates. “That’s just Politics 101.”

In July, the NRCC unveiled Project GROW, which stands for Growing Republican Opportunities for Women. There have been several GROW outreach and recruitment events since that time, say GOP officials. “Recruiting women candidates is a top priority of the NRCC this cycle and we’ve had tremendous support from our women members of congress through our Project Grow initiative,” said Liesl Hickey, NRCC executive director.

Rep. Ann Wagner (R-Mo.) said she is working to try to recruit more Republican women to run for Congress, pointing out that only 19 of the 231 House GOP members are women.

“It’s a failure and one that absolutely must be addressed,” Wagner acknowledged.

She said women are pivotal to future elections since they make up the majority of potential voters, with the trend increasing in recent years.

“We’re not a coalition. We’re 54 percent of the electorate. We rule,” Wagner said. “We decide the elections going forward. We decide a lot of things.’

Conservatives reading this article will be quick to point out the existence of Governors such as Nikki Haley and Susanna Martinez, Lt. Governor’s such as Kim Guadango (who would become Governor of New Jersey if Chris Christie steps aside before his term is up as part of a Presidential bid), and Senators such as Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire. These are all good examples of the kind of fresh blood that the party arguably needs at this point to make up for the negative reputation it has among female voters, but the fact that I could name those four women off the top of my head is an indication of just how rare high profile women are in the GOP. If the GOP wants to make itself seem more open to women voters, then it needs to do something about candidate recruitment so that Republican women in office is not seen as such an oddity that one is able to name all of the female GOP lawmakers out there. Of course, that also means choose quality female candidates. The party does itself no good when it puts forward candidates like Sarah Palin, Christine O’Donnell, Sharron Angle, and Michele Bachmann who are, in the end, just as flaky and out of touch as their Republican male counterparts.

Will the current GOP effort to make sure they don’t have a repeat of the Akin and Mourdock fiascoes succeed? It’s too early to tell obviously, but if they’re able to do a better job at candidate selection and recruitment then they just might succeed in that regard. Those two men made mistakes that were so widely covered that any candidate with a brain should have learned immediately what not to say while their running for office. As noted, however, not saying stupid things is only part of the solution to the GOP’s “female problem,” they’ve also got to be more open to candidates who hold positions that are actually going to attract female voters or at least not turn them away in the manner that Ken Cuccinelli did here in Virginia, and they’ll have to do a much better job of attracting good female candidates for office. In the end, given that we’re talking about the gender that actually tends to vote at a higher percentage in the average election, these are the only smart things to do.

Comments

Really, how do you nicely and sensitively tell a woman that you don’t believe she should have control over her own body to the point of making her get an unnecessary intrusive vaginal probe? Do you think smiling sweetly will make your message go down any better? Do you call her honey while you tell her you’re sorry she’s going to die in childbirth but there’s no way they can give you a life saving abortion?

“…more severe among young, single women than among married women with children”

Actually, they win among married women. They win among white women. They do badly among minorities and young people, but that’s true among men as well.

The story here isn’t about talking to women, by the way, it’s about running against women. And that’s going to be more of an issue in a couple of years if the Democratic nominee is a woman. That’s what they’re really preparing for: how to criticize Clinton without sounding misogynistic.

Will the current GOP effort to make sure they don’t have a repeat of the Akin and Mourdock fiascoes succeed?

No. Because they’re not even considering the vileness of _what_ they’re saying to women – only _how_ they say it. They would really have a better chance if they literally stopped talking to women altogether until after the election.

It is impossible for the more conservative party to ever appeal to minority or single women. The trend in politics is not only for the U.S. to be a one party state but for there to be few, if any, compentitve elections.

The real question for the future is what will happen to politics, culture, and the economy when women get the big government, high tax, high entitlement, low growth country that they keep voting for. Will they be happy when politics is about groups fighting for what they get out of the government while sticking others with the bill.

Do women really want a country where most children are raised by single mothers, are on the free lunch program, and have miserable job and education prospects for the future.

Frank Luntz: Okay, “Talking to Women” Take 28:
Prospective Candidate: “Did you know that many men consider a miscarriage to be involuntary manslaughter?”
Frank: Cut!

Frank: Okay, “Talking to Women” Take 29:
Prospective Candidate: “Did you know that there are many men who consider the use of birth control to be manslaughter?”
Frank: Cut!

Frank: Okay, “Talking to Women” Take 30:
Prospective Candidate: “Did you know that there are men who, out of the goodness of their hearts, are willing to make all of your reproductive health choices and decisions for you?”
Frank: Cut!

Wait, most women don’t want to go back to the glory days of the 1950s (or 1880s, perhaps)? Rule #1: Don’t talk to women! Or gays, or hispanics, or…. In fact, don’t say anything at all, just let the campaign team handle everything.

“The little queen touts her abstinence and she won the crown because she got bullied in school,,,boohoo..kids are cruel, life sucks and you move on..Now, miss queen is being used like a street walker and her pimps are the DEMOCRAT PARTY and RINO REPUBLICANS…These pimps want something they can’t get,,, the seat held by a conservative REPUBLICAN Rodney Davis and Nancy Pelosi can’t stand it.”

Ummmm…. Just my opinion? A few meetings and lessons on messaging isn’t going to help these bozos. They need a full 12 step program. Let’s call it MNSA, Misogynists Not So Anonymous.

There is another way that the GOP could make itself more attractive to female voters, of course, and that would be to find a way to stop being seen a party almost exclusively made up of white male candidates

Why is it that when the GOP has a problem with a particular electorate, everyone thinks the answer is tokenism? I remember hearing that women who wanted Hillary for president would flock to McCain when he chose a woman as vice president. We know it worked out, of course, but it wouldn’t have worked one iota better if he had chosen a competent Republican woman along the lines of Kay Bailey Hutchison, Susan Collins, or Elizabeth Dole.

Women will vote for a white man if he addresses their concerns and takes right positions on issues that they consider important. The gender and race of the candidate is relatively trivial.

I wish conservatives had made a bigger issue of Warren’s book “The Two-Income Trap” and gotten her to define what “bad schools” and “good schools” are. There is now way that Warren can answer truthfully.

What Warren admitted in the book is that not living next to poor people is very expensive and cause many Americans to go bankrupt when hit with financial difficulties. Warren absolutely refuses to reconcile her economic beliefs for the middle class with her support for open borders, amnesty, higher taxes, and a smaller private sector.

I think since Republicans are more likely to be white, be married, and have children that the average Democratic Party voters, part of the insult of Warren was an attack on how white liberal try to game the diversity game. It goes in to the view that progressives think they will benefit politically from the destruction of the white middle class while thinking they are clever enough to avoid the downside of a government that believes in separate and unequal treatment of citizens based upon their race or ethnicity.

If would be the same to believe that white Republicans believes that their daugthers, like Abigail Fisher or Jennifer Grtax, will be harmed by the growing diversity of the u.s. while white progressives believe they are so smart and so clever that they will not be harmed.

Their only real hope of attracting the younger female vote is downplaying the parts of the platform they hate. That’s really the only way you grab any voter nowadays. They’re just unlucky to have had such maladroit state legislatures pushing crap in the last couple of years.

“The Two-Income Trap” is actually a rational analysis. It is true that GDP grew as certain things demanded by two-income couples suffered high degrees of inflation (homes, medical care, college for the kids).

And it is true that when expenses are planned around BOTH incomes, losing EITHER income in a downturn can lead to catastrophe.

That would not be true if couples planned around one income and treated the other as an extra, for discretionary spending only, but few do that.

The subject of this post is ridiculous…Republicans will continue to fail to attract the votes of young single women, blacks, Hispanics, and just about every other minority group as long as the GOP is openly hostile to these groups…no amount of “messaging” will be able to combat that…

This is easy. As soon as Republicans believe women are equal and they don’t just belong in the kitchen and making babies they lose. As soon as they recognize women have minds and lives as well, they will get as much of the women’s vote as they get the male’s. As a liberal democrat I have no worries, their capacity for stupidity seems infinite.

What is amazing is how expecting adults to act like rational adults and think about the long term consequences of their decisions can be considered hostile.

It is one thing to call women sluts but is it really hostile to believe that women should pay for their own contraception, should be able to take care of their own children, should not have children when they are young, single, and unemployed, should avoid violent people, and should be careful about their drinking.

It is one thing to call women sluts but is it really hostile to believe that women should pay for their own contraception, should be able to take care of their own children, should not have children when they are young, single, and unemployed, should avoid violent people, and should be careful about their drinking.

Yes. It is misogynistic and hostile for the very reason that you are directing those pronouncements only at women.

Men behaving badly becomes the woman’s fault. Children become solely the woman’s responsibility (unless it is whether to have them, then you give them no choice). You try to reduce women to (a) them and (b) things, not “us”.

As both the 2012 campaign and the recently concluded Governor’s race in Virginia revealed starkly, the biggest problem that the party has with female voters has to do with its positions on issues, including not just social issues like abortion and access to contraceptives but also economic issues and domestic policy issues like education.

Any economist will tell you that contraception is an economic issue. Absent safe, reliable contraception, women’s ability to participate in the skilled workforce is severely limited.

So the only way to not be seen as hostile is to let women do whatever they want, be as short-sighted as they want to be, be as selfish as they want to be, and then to pay taxes and fund a massive nanny state to backstop all of the negative consequences of those decisions.

Do you really think that the U.S. can really be competitive in the world marketplace and be something other than a third world country by subsidizing irresponsible behavior while increasing the fee (tax) of responsible behavior.

If expecting women to be responsible for their own contraception is considered being hostile to them, then the U.S. really only needs one political party and elections are moot. If no disagree is allowed on any social issue, then what is the point of politics and governance expect to be the tax collector for the welfare state.

It is one thing to call women sluts but is it really hostile to believe that women should pay for their own contraception, should be able to take care of their own children, should not have children when they are young, single, and unemployed, should avoid violent people, and should be careful about their drinking.

Haysoos christo, could you be any more laced with misogyny? Really? “should avoid violent people, and should be careful about their drinking.”??? What about men not being violent or taking advantage of drunk women? Or is that just SOP for men in your eyes, and heaven forbid we hold them responsible for their actions? And getting paid less than a man for the same work? Tuff sh!t, quit yer whining.

Hey Kari? You see what I am talking about? In conservative eyes, the straight white man is a victim of those devious slutty women getting drunk and being around violent men. If only they behaved better, men wouldn’t be tempted into the path of the devil. And how dare they think they are the equal of a man.

The point was how to appeal to women and the progessive answer seems to always be that women are incapable of being responsbile for their own actions and need the government to protect them and backstop all of their bad decisions. Men were not part of the discussion.

Once again, how does a conservative party appeal to women without proposing much higher taxes, without expanding entitlements, without more social engineering (such as equal pay for equivalent (not equal) work), and with allowing women to continue to make decisions without thinking about the long term.

Maybe progressives should remember that it is the expansion of the nanny state that has allowed men to become even more irresponsible since the government will always step in when women make stupid decisions that involve irresponsible men.

Maybe progressives should remember that it is the expansion of the nanny state that has allowed men to become even more irresponsible since the government will always step in when women make stupid decisions that involve irresponsible men.

The government isn’t there to encourage men to be stupid. It’s there because men are stupid.

And it won’t matter if there is a lot of government or if there little government. Men will always be stupid.

@superdestroyer: “So the only way to not be seen as hostile is to let women do whatever they want”

That you see yourself as one who “lets” others make decisions for themselves is at the crux of why your argument is failing here, and among conservatives in general.

You completely overestimate your power when you use the verb “to let.” And when you realize you no longer have this power, it makes you say grumpy things, and complain about a future in which you know you are going to be very very unhappy.

So the only way to not be seen as hostile is to let women do whatever they want, be as short-sighted as they want to be, be as selfish as they want to be, and then to pay taxes and fund a massive nanny state to backstop all of the negative consequences of those decisions.

You seem to be in synch with Take 30:

Frank: Okay, “Talking to Women” Take 30:
Prospective Candidate: “Did you know that there are men who, out of the goodness of their hearts, are willing to make all of your reproductive health choices and decisions for you?”
Frank: Cut!

Would it have helped your nitpicking to say that for progressives, the only way to not be hostile to women is to enable whatever women want to do with tax dollars, government policies, and separate and unequal treatment.

How does a conservative party appeal to single women while remaining conservative. How can conservatives support government policies that backstop every short-sighted poor decision made by single mothers?

Conservatives could say that women can do whatever they want for contraception and their bodies just as long as they pay for it themselves and they live with the results of whatever choice they make. In other words, why should conservatives have to pay so much for entitlement programs because single mothers want to have children that they cannot care for themselves?

@superdestroyer: “How does a conservative party appeal to single women while remaining conservative.”

An actual conservative would recognize that the personal lives of any kind of person, including single women, are simply none of your business. Nor are they going anywhere because you’ve crossed your arms and now you’re upset the verb “to let” no longer carries the power it once did. We’re all still here.

An actual conservative would recognize the need for investments in education and health care for all persons, including single women, because someone is otherwise going to have to pay for it and big. Which means you.

An actual conservative would realize that governing requires compromise to conserve they very nation itself, warts and all. You included.

“Live and let live” is a genuinely conservative position. It has shown to reduce stress.

Do you practice any of that? If you cannot even get these small things right, you are no conservative. Your words instead sound like those of an angry busy-body who isn’t getting enough busy-bodying time any more.

It is one thing to call women sluts but is it really hostile to believe that women should pay for their own contraception, should be able to take care of their own children, should not have children when they are young, single, and unemployed, should avoid violent people, and should be careful about their drinking.

You see, the problem with a statement like that is you seem to be distinguishing between “irresponsible sluts” and “responsible sluts.”

I have never understood why so many conservatives are morally opposed to birth control.

Because Jesus and sluts, duh.

In other words, why should conservatives have to pay so much for entitlement programs because single mothers want to have children that they cannot care for themselves?

Superdestroyer, you do realize that there are mothers who are single by no choice of their own, right? Who had children in a relationship that turned out to be toxic and/or abusive? What responsibility do we as a society have for such families?

Have you asked that question of the Obama Administration. The last time I looked, the U.S. was still in Afghanistan. An addition, at least GW Bush went to Congress and receive approval from the Senate for invading Iraq. The Obama Administration could not be bothered when it came to Libya.

The social conservatives have made a mess of policy because in one breath they rail against taxes and the government and then with the next breath they demand the government expand to ban abortion and force women to have children. I suspect that most Americans would settle on supporting abortion (except for sex selection and other lifestyle issues) and eliminate the government funding of abortion.

The government has been investing in education and healthcare for decades. What is the metric for success. The government has double spending on education since 1990 with no real impact.

Are you are arguing is that the government should backstop the poor decisions of all women and if women make made decisions, it is the fault of the government for the lack of adequate healthcare and educaiton. There is nothing conservatives about such a position. It still enables poor plannng and poor thinking. It also employs more people who are a special interest who will automatically vote for Democrats and push for more spending and bigger government.

I have to agree. The government funding of the entitlements needed to support the children of poor women are expensive and last for decades. Give women easier access to birth control and cut back on all of the entitlements needed to pay for the children of poor single mothers. It would be the fiscally conservative thing to do and would also empower the individual which is also a conservative position.

It is hard to argue that the women are not at fault if they were in a toxic relationship. The women usually know that the relationship is toxic but stick with it any way. Why not? The government will backstop their short term thinking in the long run. The goal of conservatives should be to encourage all Americans to be more rational and to think about the long term consequences of their decisions.

@superdestroyer: “Are you are arguing is that the government should backstop the poor decisions of all women and if women make made decisions”

Remove the word “poor” and change “all women” to “all citizens” and you have it exactly right.

Stop judging people, e.g. “poor” and “single women” and government is a whole lot easier to administer. Such judgments are not the role of government.

As for investments in education, there have not been any real ones, as our complex world demands the school house door remain open for life to all. A public university degree has no value if it bankrupts the earner of it. The actual costs are tiny compared to what is spent on defense, and the payback later is what the country must have to stay competitive.

There really isn’t any place in government for narrow, personal judgments such those you make on a routine basis. Such judgments are not conservative. They arise from the unmet need to be a busy-body, a most intrusive sport that accomplishes nothing.

@superdestroyer: so it’s ok to have an abortion as long as you use a coat hanger?

Great help you are…..

Look: women don’t have abortions because they like having them. They have them because they are placed in the situation where continuing to term and raising the child presents a hell of a big problem for them. Either because they don’t have the financial support to raise the child, or because the male who got them pregnant has vamoosed.

What about the men? Why don’t you go chew their ears off? Why is it just the women’s problem?

A guess this is a round about way to have free public universities for all. Of course, all that would do would be to reduce the value of an undergraduate degree to that of the current high school diploma. The last thing the U.S. needs is more people with degrees in literature or communications working at Starbucks. All educating more people will do in the current economy is drive down the value of a college degree, blur the line between people with real ability and people with phony credentials, and reward those single women that we were discussing with even more government goodies.

If women get complete control over their own bodies, then abortion, raising children, and birth control are their concerns. If women claim that they are do whatever they want, then fine. They just need to be willing to pay for their own and to live with the long term consequences of their own decisions.

What progressives seem to promise women is that all of them can be a freelance writer with the government paying for their education, their healthcare, their children and men will be the ones paying the taxes that will fund it all.

I guess you missed the point. There is no way that the more conservative party can appeal to minority or single women. Minority and single women want a large, big spending, nanny state government that will provide for them and will tax others to fund the government.

The real question for politics is what happens since single mothers and their children, retired women, and women who work in the public sector become the dominant political force in the U.S.

@superdestroyer: Oh, my friend, I grasped instantly that you imagine “single and minority women” to be essentially dependent and witless. I just thought it was worth noting that you were working very hard to convince them that the conservative movement has found them out and will persecute them until they become more worthy. “The beatings will continue until morale improves!”

Great work! I’ll quote you when talking to my sisters, both of whom are tea-party conservatives.

The social conservatives have made a mess of policy because in one breath they rail against taxes and the government and then with the next breath they demand the government expand to ban abortion and force women to have children. I suspect that most Americans would settle on supporting abortion (except for sex selection and other lifestyle issues) and eliminate the government funding of abortion.

I generally agree with your statement, I think. Not sure what taxes have to do with anything. Also, most Americans have settled on supporting limited abortion rights, and government spending on abortion was eliminated by the Hyde amendment, if I’m not mistaken. But yes, in my opinion it is the social conservatives who’ve messed things up with women the most.

It is hard to argue that the women are not at fault if they were in a toxic relationship. The women usually know that the relationship is toxic but stick with it any way. Why not? The government will backstop their short term thinking in the long run. The goal of conservatives should be to encourage all Americans to be more rational and to think about the long term consequences of their decisions.

This is not only a non-sequitur, it’s cold, short-sighted, ill informed, or just plain delusional thinking, the same thing you’re accusing single and minority women of.

It is hard to argue that the women are not at fault if they were in a toxic relationship. The women usually know that the relationship is toxic but stick with it any way. Why not? The government will backstop their short term thinking in the long run.

Seriously, what are you trying to say here? I have my suspicions based on the general tenor of your other statements, but really don’t want to go there. Try this scenario:

White woman, educated & middle class, meets man, falls in love, they get married and have a child. Man turns out to be a total shit heel or a sociopath. Woman is now totally on her own with the child, either through divorce or on the run. Do you think this isn’t a common occurrence? What responsibility do we as a society have for such families?